Anxiously Awaiting New Critters

Top Bar Bee Hive in Construction

Last year I stumbled on a beekeeping book and decided Die Gruene Weide needed a bee hive. The pros are we get nature's best pollinators to help our garden and orchard produce more, and we get fresh yummy honey. The cons are the potential to get stung and work to maintain the hive(s). After evaluating the various bee hive possibilities, we decided that top bar hives met our desire for a closer-to-nature experience of bee keeping.

Top bar hives require more work than Langstrom hives and produce less honey, but from the videos I've seen and the articles I've read, the top bar beekeeping experience puts you closer to the bees. Everything I do with Die Weide has some production and enjoyment value, but not to the point of being obsessed with maximizing production. A dozen tree orchard and our garden won't support us, and neither will the honey we extract from our hive(s). I envision having an abundance of honey to share with family, friends, and neighbors with a bit left over to make a buck or two.

Above you can see the hive under construction. I built it last year, but completed it late in the summer when few blooms were left in the dry conditions so I postponed ordering bees until this year so they can have an abundance of blooms to extract their food from.

The picture below shows the finished hive awaiting new occupants. I found the fancy roof too tight and plan to replace the peaked roof with a waterproof plank cover of some sort. I had hoped the hive would self-populate but that hasn't occurred as yet so I have ordered and will pick up a package of bees the first week of May. I sure hope they enjoy their new home!

Bee Hive Awaiting Honey Bees